Having a Nice Day? I Can Fix That.

In this version of the Christian Gospel, the exploitation and abuse of other human beings is a good. Homosexuality is an evil. And this global, heartless system of economic rationalism has morphed in the rhetoric of the Christian Right into a test of faith. The ideology it espouses is a radical evil, an ideology of death. It calls for wanton destruction, destruction of human beings, of the environment, of communities and neighborhoods, of labor unions, of a free press, of Iraqis, Palestinians or others in the Middle East who would deny us oil fields and hegemony, of federal regulatory agencies, social welfare programs, public education--in short, the destruction of all people and programs that stand in the way of a Christian America and its God-given right to dominate the rest of the planet. The movement offers, in return, the absurd but seductive promise that those who are right with God will rise to become spiritual and material oligarchs.  They will become the new class.Those who are not right with God, be they poor or Muslim or unsaved, deserve what they get. In the rational world none of this makes sense. But believers have been removed from a reality-based world. They believe that through Jesus all is possible.  It has become a Christian duty to embrace the exploitation of others, to build a Christian America where freedom means the freedom of the powerful to dominate the weak. Since believers see themselves as becoming empowered through faith, the gross injustices and repression that could well boomerang back on most of them are of little concern. They assuage their consciences with the small acts of charity they or their churches dole out to the homeless or the mission fields. The emotion-filled religious spectacles and spiritual bromides compensate for the emptiness of their lives. They are energized by hate campaigns against gays or Muslims or liberals or immigrants. They walk willingly into a totalitarian prison they are helping to construct. They yearn for it. They work for it with passion, self-sacrifice and a blinding self-righteousness. "Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even a duty," Simone Weil wrote in Gravity and Grace. And it is the duty of the Christian foot soldiers to bring about the Christian utopia. When it is finished, when all have been stripped of legal and social protection, it will be too late to resist. This is the genius of totalitarian movements. They convince the masses to agitate for their own incarceration. 

Hedges, Chris  American fascists : the Christian Right and the war on America  New York : Free Press, ©2006

If you haven't read this book yet, you really should. No, really. the Christian Right from the inside.

A Note To The ICC

And any lawyers trying to jail members of the Bush administration on war crimes charges. There's a pretty good timeline of events here.

Harper's Index on the Bush Years

From Alternet:

Harper's has released a retrospective of the Bush years Harper's Index that is both hilarious and saddening. Here's just a taste:

Estimated percentage by which Social Security benefits would have declined if Bush’s privatization plan had passed: –15

Estimated total calories members of Congress burned giving Bush’s 2002 State of the Union standing ovations: 22,000

Percentage change since 2002 in the number of U.S. teens using illegal drugs: –9

Percentage change in the number of adults in their fifties doing so: +121

Number of White House officials in 2006 and 2007 authorized to discuss pending criminal cases with the DOJ: 711

Number of Clinton officials ever authorized to do so: 4

Percentage of the amendments in the Bill of Rights that are violated by the USA PATRIOT Act, according to the ACLU: 50

Estimated number of U.S. intelligence reports on Iraq that were based on information from a single defector: 100

Number of times the defector had ever been interviewed by U.S. intelligence agents: 0

Date on which Bush said of Osama bin Laden, "I truly am not that concerned about him": 3/13/02

Days after the U.S. invaded Iraq that Sony trademarked "Shock & Awe" for video games: 1

Days later that the company gave up the trademark, citing "regrettable bad judgment": 25

Take the time to read it all here.

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Well this is disturbing ...

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There is an explanation

for so much buried in here. This White House xmas video takes stupid to a whole new place. Though it does help to explain Bush's complete disconnect from consensus reality.

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Worst. President. Ever.

CNN and Opinion research Corporation released a survey Monday that shows that outgoing US President George W. Bush has now reached unprecedented levels of unpopularity--he is now more unpopular than Richard Nixon was when he resigned. Bush's disapproval rating has now gone over 70% three times this year--no other president has ever gone over 70%. Nixon was resigning from office in disgrace and was still more popular than the shrub. Heckuva job, Georgie.

Presidential Popularity

	% Disapproval	Date
G.W. Bush	76	Nov. 2008
Clinton	54	Sept. 1994
G.H.W. Bush	60	July 1992
Reagan	56	Jan. 1983
Carter	59	June 1979
Ford	46	April, Nov., Dec. 1975
Nixon	66	August 1974
Johnson	52	March, Aug. 1968
Kennedy	30	Nov. 1963
Eisenhower	36	March 1958
Truman	67	Jan. 1952

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